Goodye

Saying goodbye to Jeffrey, the guy who presents the movie evening at the Nieuwe Anita. Saying goodbye to Marcos, my Brazillian Jiu Jitsu teacher who helped me improve my fighting skills even more. Saying goodbye to my colleagues from Lemz. Saying goodbye to Luiz, the art-director with whom I continuously struggled to make the best work possible. Saying goodbye to my friends. Saying goodbye to my sister and my parents in Alkmaar...

Of course I'm not going to travel to the other side of the planet. But some people I'm not going to see for a long time and that's always hard. But I kind of got used to saying goodbye now. It's getting easier all the time. And tomorrow it's goodbye Amsterdam. I've had a great time in this awesome city. Tomorrow a moving company will bring me to Hamburg, where I'll work for Jung von Matt in the new year.

Saying goodbye is hard, but it's necessary to leave things behind in order to get new experiences. That's why I've decided, after 6 years, to say goodbye to this blog. Instead, I've made an account on Twitter and I'll start with it the 2nd of January, when I start at my new agency Jung von Matt. My Twitter-name is @robinstamcopy. Feel free to subscribe. Or add me on Facebook. I wish everybody a happy new year and lots of positive changes for 2012.

Visiting Hamburg

It's been half a year since I last visited Hamburg. But when you walk there knowing that you're going to live there again, you look at it in a different way. I had this funny feeling that I was walking in a trusted environment. A place that I already know. I was reading a book in the tram, as if I've lived there for years. Cause I know that in less than a month Hamburg will be my hometown again.

I'm in Hamburg since Saturday. I got the keys to my new apartment and I've met my new art-director Eric van den Hoonaard, with whom I'm going to spend lots of hours concepting when I start working at JvM. On top of that, I've met up with all the friends that stayed in Hamburg since they gradutated Miami Ad School. And yesterday I even had a drink with Armando Bertolini, who's now living in Berlin but who's visiting Hamburg for a week.

These last few days were a small snippet of how my daily life in Hamburg is going to be. And it's nothing new to me. Except for one thing...when I walked in Jung von Matt to meet my new creative directors, I could already feel that this is where the adventure will start. Yes, I've had classes at Jung von Matt before, but working there and proving that you're worth the salary that you get, is a whole different ballgame.

My good friend Salvatore told me this week that creatives should always go for the agency, regardless of the city that the agency is in. I think he's right. I'm leaving a beautiful city where I have a lot of friends (Amsterdam) to go to another beautiful city where I have a lot of friends (Hamburg). In my mind, it doesn't feel like a big change. But I'm pretty sure the agency is going to make all the difference.

Goodbye Lemz

Me toasting with creative director Remco

It's kind of a tradition for creatives on their last day to take all sorts of useful stuff from the agency: yearbooks that were lying around anyway, a tape dispenser, pens, USB-sticks, markers, an award that you won but nobody would find out if it were missing, marker. It's the last chance to take stuff in a way that doesn't really look like stealing. But because I have to put all my possesions in moving boxes that will go to Hamburg at the end of December, I didn't really feel the need to have any more stuff.

Wednesday it was my last day and I got the best two goodbye gifts ever. In the afternoon we heard that Lemz won 4 Epica awards and the IKEA 365 campaign was good for silver. This epic amount of Epica's put Lemz on the second place of Holland at that festival (Wieden & Kennedy was first). And in the evening, we heard that IKEA 365 won another silver, this time at the Eurobest festival. Finally recognition for a campaign that cost us blood, sweat and tears (and I mean that literally).

These last days I realized even more than I already did that I'm leaving a great agency with wonderful people. But this can't make me regret my decision. It only confirms me that I got the most out of my time at Lemz. My decision to go to Jung von Matt was not a rational one. I have the feeling that I should be there. I follow my heart, and somehow it leads me back to Hamburg.